8/11/08

Well, here we are again, Monday morning and I have nothing to say. I did do a token amount of work on George over the weekend but not really enough to be worth mentioning. Here’s what went down. First off, remember the 411 SSS John and I were bidding on in Outer Buttswainia? Well, the flake who won did show up and get the car so I'm off the hook there. However, the estate, or whatever it is, is selling off the rest of the dude’s collection of parts and stuff at scrap price. We were thinking of going down next Saturday to see what we could score. This set in motion a chain reaction of thoughts in my head. “If we’re going to buy parts, I'm going to want to take Fifi. If we’re taking Fifi, she’ll need to get a state inspection. That check engine light has been on for about six months now and they fail OBD-II cars for CELs. I ought to fix that issue and get the truck inspected Saturday morning.” So, my plan was to have the code read, buy the parts to fix it (oxygen sensor moist likely), fix it, and get an inspection. When I got to the shop, John was talking to a dude about a car deal. I stood back and waited. Eventually they finished so John and I got to talking about stuff. It was decided that we were not going to go to the scrap parts sale after all. With that off the agenda I decided to blow off fixing Fifi this weekend as well. I showed John the amber bulbs I had bought for George, the ones with the 135° spacing on the mounting titties, and asked his opinion. We decided to test if the bulb would still work if one titty was ground off. The thinking was, I have these, they are already opened, if it fucks it up it won’t matter. I ground off a titty and we went to his trunk. He pulled a bulb from his turn signal and we inserted the amber one. It worked. I ground off one titty from each of the other bulbs and inserted them in their sockets. I also installed the brake/park bulbs as well. See, I told you it wasn’t really worth mentioning. We broke for lunch after that. We went to Benito’s. From there I went to the Boys of Pep to see what they would charge to scan my codes, replace the oxygen sensor, and do a state inspection. Well, first off, they don’t do state inspections. Secondly, they want $85.00 to scan the codes and look into fixing whatever that tells them. Then of course they’d charge to fix the problem and I'd still have to go elsewhere to get the inspection. I left. I went to the Firestone store across the street and asked them what it would cost. They also wanted something like $75.00 to scan the code. I think I'll go to O’Reilley’s or something and have them tell me what the code says and buy the part from them. I'm pretty sure it is an oxygen sensor. Apparently Pat has had to replace a few in the past. Perhaps I can enlist his help on this sometime. I may wait until I get a ticket though. We’ll see. Sunday morning I hung out with Dolly. She’s really coming out of her shell. For most of the week she hung out in the living room where she apparently feels safe. She’s now foraging about the rest of the house and is beginning to play with some of her toys. I made her a sock full of catnip and it had an interesting effect. She carries it around and caterwauls! She sets to chewing and kicking it then rolling around once I get on the floor with her. It is weird. After mom got home from church I went to the shop. I took the long way and went for a hoon out FM5 first. I had decided that I was going to look through the wiring diagram for George and finger out the fuel level sender wire, the left and right turn signal wires, the high beam wires, and the illumination wires. I did this. I did not do anything with this information, but at least I now know into what wires I need to splice. I had a look at the gauges and did just a bit of work with them. First I put a hose clamp on the boost gauge to secure it to the dash and then I wired the boost, speedometer, and tachometer illumination together. As I was thinking about doing the grounds, Marty Smith drove up. He was going to the hardware store and asked if I wanted to ride along. I closed up and went with him. When he dropped me back off, I didn’t even go inside. I hopped in Darth Versa and went home. So, there you have it. Perhaps next weekend I'll make real progress on George. Of course as soon as the head is done at Automotive Machine I'm jumping right back in on Shi-Chi. Well, we’ll see how things develop, I guess. Toodles.